One of the most common questions about Canadian e-commerce is – ‘if I sell online to people in other provinces, do I have to charge and remit their provinces sales tax?’

The answer to this question is ‘Yes’, however it is complicated by the different rules in each province.

Here are the general tax rules to determining what taxes apply to your online sale;

If you are selling goods or services in your own province, the tax rules for your own province or territory apply.

If you are selling goods or services out of province, you would charge the GST/HST rate based on where the orders are being shipped to.

If you are selling goods or services out of province to Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut or Yukon (which have no provincial sales tax), you would charge only GST (5%) on the sale.

Note that you would not charge GST on taxable goods and/or services being shipped to other countries.

As an e-commerce business accepting and shipping orders across Canada, the taxes you would be collecting and remitting on your online sales are as follows;

British Columbia – GST 5% and PST 7%

Alberta – GST 5%

Saskatchewan – GST 5% and PST 6%

Manitoba – GST 5% and PST 7%

Ontario – HST 13%

Quebec – GST 5% and QST (Quebec Sales Tax) 9.975%

New Brunswick – HST 13%

Nova Scotia – HST 15%

Newfoundland & Labrador – HST 13%

Prince Edward Island – HST 14%

Northwest Territories – GST 5%

Nunavut – GST 5%

Yukon – GST 5%

In your home province, registering for PST is mandatory if you are selling taxable goods and/or services. With that being said, you should register as a Provincial Sales Tax Vendor with each province you will be doing business with and will be expected to collect and remit the sales tax accordingly.